Bowling Alone - The Collapse and Revival of American Community
Abstract With what he coined as the ‘erosion of social capital’, Robert Putnam brings to our attention the peril of a reduction in all forms of in-person social interaction that has happened across America over the past few decades. In the book ‘Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community’, Putnam begins by highlighting the decreased level of political engagement, and subsequently moved on to discuss about a similarly worrying trend in civic activities such as clubs and societies. He used bowling as an example to illustrate that although the number of bowlers has increased, less bowlers participate in leagues, denoting a fall in interaction among people, which would have been part of bowling leagues. In accounting for the fall in social capital, Putnam listed a few explanations, such as changes in social structures, policy directions and the technological transformation of leisure, which is of particular concern here since it involves the digitization of media and is an important element being explored in our course. He further went on to illustrate how this digital revolution undermines primitive yet indispensible forms of human interaction by using the change from vaudevilles to movies and to VCRs. Putnam argues that although new forms of leisure are able to satisfy more tastes, they privatizes and individualizes the whole experience, eliminating the incentive or need for social capital formation and hence resulting in its very decay. Key Concepts 1. Social capital forms the very basis of our society; it is what enriches our experience and is indispensible to the function, sustenance and completeness of the individual person. 2. Putnam refers to the invention of television as the epitome of the technological transformation of our leisure time. He noted that the growth in time spent by Americans watching TV dwarves all other ways in how we pass time. One of negative effects includes devoting less time to social activities that require engagement in person. 3. A modern democracy is built upon the concept of ‘civil society’ – the need to foster a vibrant civic life in order to advance the society as a whole. 4. However, the rise of technology and new forms of entertainment have reportedly led to an erosion in social connectedness, compromising civic engagement, trust and rapport. 5. Technology seems to be driving a wedge between our individual interests and collective interest as a society. It has altered our social dynamism significantly and may even change how we function as a democratic polity. Resources and further reading 1. In The Hour, George F. Will agrees with Putnam by pointing to the fact that social capital ‘sustains a free society’ and that ‘social trust and civic engagement are strongly correlated’. He also explains the phenomenon of increased ‘lone bowlers’ in great detail, further enhancing Putnam’s theory. 2. Satoshi Kanazawa presented an interesting finding in her study ‘Bowling with our imaginary friends’. In a scientific study conducted by Satoshi, she found out that the human brain has difficutly distinguishing between real friends and people it sees on the TV screen. Contrary to Putnam’s belief, she argues that ‘there is nothing shallow about the community we experience by watching TV’, which is ‘our form of participating in civic groups because we do not really know that we are not participating in them’. 3. Vicente Navarro too raises questions regarding Putnam’s concept of social capitalism and ‘togetherness’ among people and communities. Specifically, he raises the question: what is the underlying purpose of such a togetherness? Vicente mainly points to Putnam’s lack of a political understanding towards the issue. 4. Pertaining to Putnam’s evidence showing the decline in vibrant covic spaces and interaction, Williams’ paper discusses the rise of online gaming and the shift of social interaction into the virtual dimensions. 5. M. Sharon backs Putnam’s view on the benefits of civic engagement by presenting data that demonstrate the many positive social and cultural benefits arising from social cohesion. Keywords Social Capital , Technology , Civic engagement , sustainable communities , digital culture , democracy Citations 1. Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000 2. Will, George F., The Hour, 1995 3. Kanazawa, Satoshi, Evolution and Human Behavior, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 23, May 2002 4. Navarro, Vicente, A critique of Social Capital, International Journal of Health Services, Volume 32, 2002 5. Williams, Dimitri, Why Game Studies now? Gamers don’t bowl alone, University of Illinois, 2006 6. Jeannotte, M. Sharon, Singing alone? The contribution of cultural capital to social cohesion and sustainable communities, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Volume 9, 2003